Sliding caster for furniture.



R. E. MILLER. SLIDING (EASTER FOR FURNITURE. APPLICATION FILED 05c. I9,I9Ie.

1 52,837 a Patented Jan. 8, 1918.

v ii A4 ROBERT E. MILLER, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

Specification of Letters 2atent.

5 SLIDING CAS'I'ER FOR FURNITURE.

Patented J an. 8, 1918.

Application filed December 19, 1916. Serial No. 137,831.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ROBERT E. MILLER, citizen of the United States, and a resident of New York, in the county of New York and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Sliding Casters for Furniture, of which the following is aspecification.

My invention relates to sliding casters for furniture.

It has for its object a caster with a flange to cover the end of a leg of furniture, and With prongs more or less formed out of the material for the flanges.

Such casters are stamped or punched from sheet metal and it is desirable to fashion the most efiicient caster for a given size of leg out of the least amount of material.

Furthermore, the farther away the prongs are from the outside edge of the leg the less the danger of splitting the wood of the leg.

Another feature is a still further reduction of the tendency to split the wood by arranging the prongs radially with one edg toward the center.

In the drawings Figure 1 shows a plan view of a blank adapted to be formed into my caster.

Fig. 2 shows a section of the caster.

In Figs. 1 and 2 is shown a dome 6 having a continuous curved rim surrounded by and connected to flange portions 7 8 and 9, between which the prongs are formed out of the flange by being cut and bent down. The prongs before being bent down are shown in broken lines at 10. After the prongs are bent down, the caster, preferably of steel, is hardened and usually nickeled and polished in the usual way. "When the prongs are bent down from the flange by the ordinary process, slight webs may be formed in the corners between the prongs and the flange portion as shown. The dome manufactured in this way provides sufficient strength to withstand greater weights than a dome without such provisions and is therefore capable of being used upon large legs. When so used, the prongs penetrate the wood at a greater distance from the outside of the wooden leg, so that there is less tendency to split the wood.

This construction eliminates the difliculty which has heretofore been encountered in making chair tips for heavier furniture, as heretofore the chair tips had to be larger in diameter and corrrespondingly heavier with the result that the prongs had a greater tendency to split the wood as they penetrated the wood nearer the outside surface of the legs.

My construction solves this problem by making the chair tips of thinner material, so that the prongs have less tendency to split, and locating the prongs farther from the surface of the legs, so that the wood itself can stand being penetrated by the prongs with less tendency to split.

Many variations of my invention may be made without departing from its spirit.

What I claim is 1. A sliding caster for furniture adapted to be formed from sheet metal having a convex hardened dome, a flange surrounding said dome extending outward therefrom and united to said dome around its perimeter, portions of said flange being out and bent down forming prongs, said prongs lying within the outer perimeter of said flange and adapted to be driven into wood to secure said caster thereto.

2. The combination set forth in claim 1 having an axial line of the prongs of substantially continuous metal extending from the curved perimeter of the dome and lying at right angles to the plane of the perimeter of said dome.

Signed at New York in the county of New York and State of New York this 10th day of July A. D 1916.

ROBERT E. MILLER.

Witness:

MYRON F. HILL.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. G. 

